Commingled wines
Of you and me
In one fulfil
The mystery.

PATIENCE

A WIND comes from the north
Blowing little flocks of birds
Like spray across the town,
And a train, roaring forth,
Rushes stampeding down
With cries and flying curds
Of steam, out of the darkening north.

Whither I turn and set
Like a needle steadfastly,
Waiting ever to get
The news that she is free;
But ever fixed, as yet,
To the lode of her agony.

BALLAD OF ANOTHER OPHELIA

OH the green glimmer of apples in the orchard,
Lamps in a wash of rain!
Oh the wet walk of my brown hen through the stack-yard,
Oh tears on the window pane!

Nothing now will ripen the bright green apples,
Full of disappointment and of rain,
Brackish they will taste, of tears, when the yellow
    dapples
Of autumn tell the withered tale again.

All round the yard it is cluck, my brown hen,
Cluck, and the rain-wet wings,
Cluck, my marigold bird, and again
Cluck for your yellow darlings.

For the grey rat found the gold thirteen
Huddled away in the dark,
Flutter for a moment, oh the beast is quick and
    keen,
Extinct one yellow-fluffy spark.

Once I had a lover bright like running water,
Once his face was laughing like the sky;
Open like the sky looking down in all its laughter
On the buttercups, and the buttercups was I.

What, then, is there hidden in the skirts of all the
    blossom?
What is peeping from your wings, oh mother
    hen?
'Tis the sun who asks the question, in a lovely haste
    for wisdom;
What a lovely haste for wisdom is in men!

Yea, but it is cruel when undressed is all the blossom,
And her shift is lying white upon the floor,
That a grey one, like a shadow, like a rat, a thief, a
    rain-storm,
Creeps upon her then and gathers in his store.

Oh the grey garner that is full of half-grown apples,
Oh the golden sparkles laid extinct!
And oh, behind the cloud-sheaves, like yellow autumn
    dapples,
Did you see the wicked sun that winked!

RESTLESSNESS

AT the open door of the room I stand and look at
    the night,
Hold my hand to catch the raindrops, that slant into
    sight,
Arriving grey from the darkness above suddenly into
    the light of the room.
I will escape from the hollow room, the box of light,
And be out in the bewildering darkness, which is
    always fecund, which might
Mate my hungry soul with a germ of its womb.

I will go out to the night, as a man goes down to the
    shore
To draw his net through the surfs thin line, at the
    dawn before
The sun warms the sea, little, lonely and sad, sifting
    the sobbing tide.
I will sift the surf that edges the night, with my net,
    the four
Strands of my eyes and my lips and my hands and my
    feet, sifting the store
Of flotsam until my soul is tired or satisfied.

I will catch in my eyes' quick net
The faces of all the women as they go past,
Bend over them with my soul, to cherish the wet
Cheeks and wet hair a moment, saying: "Is it
    you?"
Looking earnestly under the dark umbrellas, held
    fast
Against the wind; and if, where the lamplight
    blew
Its rainy swill about us, she answered me
With a laugh and a merry wildness that it was she
Who was seeking me, and had found me at last to
    free
Me now from the stunting bonds of my chastity,
How glad I should be!

Moving along in the mysterious ebb of the night Pass the men whose eyes are shut like anemones in a dark pool; Why don't they open with vision and speak to me, what have they in sight? Why do I wander aimless among them, desirous fool?

I can always linger over the huddled books on the
    stalls,
Always gladden my amorous fingers with the touch
    of their leaves,
Always kneel in courtship to the shelves in the
    doorways, where falls
The shadow, always offer myself to one mistress,
    who always receives.

But oh, it is not enough, it is all no good.
There is something I want to feel in my running
    blood,
Something I want to touch; I must hold my face to
    the rain,
I must hold my face to the wind, and let it explain
Me its life as it hurries in secret.
I will trail my hands again through the drenched,
    cold leaves
Till my hands are full of the chillness and touch of
    leaves,
Till at length they induce me to sleep, and to forget.

A BABY ASLEEP AFTER PAIN

  As a drenched, drowned bee
Hangs numb and heavy from a bending flower,
  So clings to me
My baby, her brown hair brushed with wet tears
  And laid against her cheek;
Her soft white legs hanging heavily over my arm
Swinging heavily to my movement as I walk.
  My sleeping baby hangs upon my life,
Like a burden she hangs on me.
  She has always seemed so light,
But now she is wet with tears and numb with pain
Even her floating hair sinks heavily,
  Reaching downwards;
As the wings of a drenched, drowned bee
  Are a heaviness, and a weariness.

ANXIETY

THE hoar-frost crumbles in the sun,
  The crisping steam of a train
Melts in the air, while two black birds
  Sweep past the window again.

Along the vacant road, a red
  Bicycle approaches; I wait
In a thaw of anxiety, for the boy
  To leap down at our gate.

He has passed us by; but is it
  Relief that starts in my breast?
Or a deeper bruise of knowing that still
  She has no rest.

THE PUNISHER

I HAVE fetched the tears up out of the little wells,
Scooped them up with small, iron words,
     Dripping over the runnels.

The harsh, cold wind of my words drove on, and still
I watched the tears on the guilty cheek of the boys
     Glitter and spill.

Cringing Pity, and Love, white-handed, came
Hovering about the Judgment which stood in my
          eyes,
     Whirling a flame.

. . . . . . .

The tears are dry, and the cheeks' young fruits are
          fresh
With laughter, and clear the exonerated eyes, since
          pain
     Beat through the flesh.

The Angel of Judgment has departed again to the
          Nearness.
Desolate I am as a church whose lights are put out.
     And night enters in drearness.

The fire rose up in the bush and blazed apace,
The thorn-leaves crackled and twisted and sweated in
          anguish;
     Then God left the place.

Like a flower that the frost has hugged and let